


Deerly Beloved

by bestliars



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Animal Transformation, M/M, Minnesota Wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 06:30:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8834017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/pseuds/bestliars
Summary: Jonas turns into a deer. He and Matt take the light rail. It’s a different sort of day.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone on twitter who encouraged this, especially ionthesparrow, who always inspires me to do weird stuff. Thanks to the beautiful Stellarer for betaing this.

Eleven in the morning, Matt woke up to a deer in the bedroom, tugging at the edge of the comforter. He was alone in bed, and cold. He instinctively pulled the blanket closer, tugging against the deer. He blinked at it, and the deer stared back, a familiar expression on a different sort of face.

He reached out to pat the deer’s neck. There was a familiar shimmer that came along with the touch, his magic bumping up against Jonas’s magic. He always found this very comforting, even before they started dating. 

“Brods, this isn’t what I thought you meant by side effects.”

Last night Jonas had been working late with Suter, kept at the Institute well past midnight setting up an experimental casting. Jonas had said there might be unexpected blowback. Matt has lived his whole life in this world, and he’s had the past couple years to get used to the sort of magic Jonas is playing around with for work. Weird shit happens. Usually he’s more awake to deal with it.

“Okay. Side effects. I’ll make some calls, we’ll figure it out.” Matt resigned himself to spending the day figuring this out, abandoning the old plan of spending Saturday playing video games and eating pizza. Maybe they could get pizza delivered to the Institute. Matt didn’t know if deer were supposed to eat pizza, but it’s Jonas, and Jonas will eat anything. Maybe it will get figured out before dinner. Matt’s always been an optimist.

The first call was to Suter, even though Matt didn’t expect that to get them anywhere. Brods had only been assisting on the working, and he got turned into a deer, god knows how it would have hit Suter. And even when he had normal human hands and ears, Suter often didn’t answer the phone. It was part of his mystique or something. Mostly Matt found it annoying, but powerful practitioners were expected to be idiosyncratic.

He called Suter’s phone, and it rang and rang. 

He left a message. “You were right to worry about the side effects. Brods turned into a deer. We’re working on a solution. Give me a call if you know what to do. Later.”

The next step was to call the Institute itself, where he could probably find someone who would know what was going on. Granny picked up, and rattled off a proper greeting, “Minnesota Institute for Wild Magic and Paranormal Occurrences, how can help you,” not sounding like he wanted to help anyone in the slightest.

“Hey. So, Brods turned into a deer and—”

Granny hung up on him. Matt called back.

“Minnesota Institute for Wild Magic and Paranormal Occurrences, how can help you?” Somehow Granny managed to sound less helpful this time around. Matt was almost impressed.

“No really, he was working late with Sutes last night, and said there might be side effects. Then I woke up this morning to a deer in our bedroom, so yeah.”

Granny sighed. 

“The director’s in a meeting. He was in a meeting when I came in this morning. He ducked out for a minute to tell me to hold all his calls, and put out any fires. I don’t know if Suter and Parise are in the meeting, but their car’s in the lot. I don’t know if it’s a meeting with _people_ , or you know… I can hear the rumbling all the way out in the lobby.”

Well. Maybe this would be more serious than Matt first thought. He petted Jonas’s neck, trying to project calm, wondering if Jonas could still understand human speech while transformed.

“So basically you’re saying the grownups are gone, and we’re on our own?”

“When Spurg left for the weekend he said he’d hex anyone who interrupted his family time, but you could try?”

“I’m not that stupid.”

Granny snorted like he didn’t believe it.

“You could try calling one of the senior reservists, but Staal’s all the way up in Thunder Bay, and I don’t think anyone else specializes in transmogrification or blowback, let alone the two interacting. You’re probably better off waiting until Mikko gets out of his meeting.”

Matt sighed. “And trying to do something myself would be stupid, right?”

Granny didn’t say anything for a long time, leaving the silence for Matt to think about just how bad of an idea that would be. “I mean… If you want to turn into a deer yourself, or make it stick, or _die_ , then sure, go for it.”

“I know, I know, I won’t.” Matt wasn’t stupid, just frustrated. “Sitting around here and waiting for a call back is going to suck though.”

“You could come in to the Institute?” Granny suggested. “Then you’d be here when the meeting was over, and if anything changes, then we’ll be able to respond faster.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Matt said. Going down to the Institute might be better than rattling around their apartment. Their apartment wasn’t deer-proof, and it seemed like Jonas was still mostly himself, but maybe he’d take the opportunity to chew on the lumpy throw pillows or something. Matt really needed to look up exactly what deer ate.

“Whatever you decide,” Granny said, then hung up on them without saying goodbye. Matt flopped back into the bed. This was not how he imagined his day _at all._ Still, the day was going to happen, he just had to make the best of it.

“You want to go into the Institute?” Matt asked.

Jonas nodded. Or at least that’s what Matt thought it was. Nodding is a pretty clear gesture, even from a deer, but Matt was only sort of sure Jonas understood the conversation.

“Cool. We’ll go into the Institute. Might as well get on Granny’s nerves in person while we’re waiting.”

He got dressed, pulling on jeans and a hoodie. He googled “what do deer eat,” on his phone, reading the top results while brushing his teeth. Apparently not ugly throw pillows, good to know. He took out the frozen blueberries the use for smoothies to give Jonas, and made himself some coffee and toaster waffles. Jonas may have gotten a toaster waffle as well. Nothing he read said deer _don’t_ eat toaster waffles, and Jonas was begging, and Matt’s a sucker, alright? Jonas only ate half of it, and it wasn’t like he was going to stay a deer, so Matt wasn’t worried.

All dressed and ready to go, Matt realized they had a problem: how to get to the Institute? Most of the time he would just teleport over, but bringing someone suffering side effects from a casting into another spell would have been a horrible idea. They’d have to do this the mundane way.

Matt’s first idea was to beg someone for a ride. He knew people who don’t just pop in and out of places, reliable people who own cars. It was worth at least asking for a ride, right?

Maybe.

Matt thought about trying to get a deer into the backseat of Marco’s car. It seemed pretty impossible, and pretty unlikely. He thought about what Marco would say if Matt called him up and said he wanted to put a deer in the back of Marco’s car. He could not imagine that conversation going well, not in a thousand years. 

He thought about getting an Uber, but explaining the deer passenger would almost certainly go badly, and he didn’t want to confound an innocent driver with a spell. Any magic he did close to Brods could mess with the side effects; plus, it would be incredibly rude.

There was only one thing for it: they’d have to take the train.

Matt liked taking the light rail. Sometimes he’d take the light rail instead of teleporting because sometimes it’s nice to have some time to think between when you leave somewhere and when you get to the next place. Also, it isn’t always safe to teleport if you’re tired, or if you’ve been drinking. The train is a very convenient alternative.

He explained the plan to Jonas, who looked up from his food to listen to Matt talk, mouth stained blue.

“So, I guess we’re going to take the train? It seems like the Green Line would be the best way to get to Downtown St Paul without doing any magic. That should be fun, I like the train.”

Jonas nodded, then went back to his blueberries.

This wasn’t the worst idea Matt had ever had. He didn’t know about any rules saying deer weren’t allowed on the train, and decided not to check, just in case. He got his sneakers on, then gathered up some of Jonas’s things. He’d have a spare change of clothes in his locker at the Institute, but Matt stuck Jonas’s phone and wallet in his own pockets. Matt was as ready as he was going to get.

Getting out of their building wasn’t bad. They just had to go down the hall to the elevator, then through the lobby, and they didn’t run into anyone who wanted to talk. The Institute had steered its younger members to this building for years, the residents were accustomed to the occasional oddity. Outside it was chilly, but bright and clear. Summer had lasted long, and they hadn’t gotten a real snow yet. There were still people hanging around in the street as Matt and Jonas started walking down Hennepin to the train station. 

A fair sized deer walking alongside a guy in a Twins hat wasn’t _too_ far out of the ordinary, and Minnesotans don’t like causing a stir. They got some odd looks, but no one said anything. Matt bumped into Jonas every now and then, just checking in, knowing he’d be able to feel the change in Jonas’s magic if he got upset. It seemed like he was worried for nothing, and that Jonas was excited to be out in the world, looking around at everything, sniffing the air.

It must be different to be a deer. Transmogrification had never been one of Matt’s interests, but the idea of seeing the world through a whole different set of senses was intriguing. When they unwound the side effects Jonas would probably write a paper about the experience. Maybe he’d learn something really profound while seeing the world as a deer. A number of very important magical discoveries were made accidentally, while working out the side effects of another working. Maybe whatever went wrong for Jonas and Suter last night would open up a new way of changing people into deer, or something more useful in that direction.

They got to the station, and Matt scanned his Go-to card. After a moment’s consideration, he took Jonas’s card out of his wallet, and scanned that too. If they had a problem with the transit police, Matt wanted it to be because there was a deer, not because the deer hadn’t paid his fare. He didn’t see how the transit police could kick them off if they had paid and everything. That wouldn’t be fair at all.

They didn’t have to wait too long for a train. Matt shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall, while Jonas paced back and forth. The train pulled up, and they got on the second compartment. This close to the start of the line, the train was almost empty. Matt took one of the seats that was supposed to be reserved for the elderly and pregnant women so he could stay close to Jonas, who was try to stay out of the way by standing in the space set aside for people to set a bicycle. He didn’t really fit, but it was a good thought.

This kid got on the train on the West Bank stop and sat across from Matt. He probably wasn’t much younger than Matt and Jonas, but the way he eyed up the deer was so wide-eyed, it made Matt feel very grown up. He was working for an important magical organization, and he had a really great boyfriend who usually wasn’t a woodland creature. He didn’t know how to fix their current situation, but he could handle it a lot better than some random college kid could.

The boy actually looked sort of afraid, which was just ridiculous. Even if it wasn’t Jonas, Matt doesn’t think he’d be afraid of a _deer_. He smiled at the kid, hoping to set him at ease. 

The boy smiled back timidly. “So… You have a deer?” the kid asked, trying to be friendly.

Matt’s excellent and being friendly. “Yeah, as long as he’ll have me.” He smiled again, even wider. People say he has a great smile.

The kid nodded, and they sat in silence for two more stops, until the kid got out in Stadium Village. 

“I don’t think what we’re doing is too weird,” Matt said to Jonas, who just nodded. It’s not like Jonas is talkative as a human, but Matt was starting to get sick of having a non-verbal partner in crime. He petted Jonas’s neck and watched the city roll by out the window.

He was totally spaced out when a young man threw himself through the doors right before they left the Snelling station.

“I can’t believe it,” the man said, talking to himself or the half full compartment. “I cannot believe it, I would have sworn this was a bad prank, but no. These Twin Cities are ganging up on me.”

The man was tall, with short dark hair that he messed up as he talked. He sat down next to Matt, and kept talking, with a European accent that Matt couldn’t place.

“People have been tweeting about a deer on the Green Line, so my editor sent me to check it out, which I think was supposed to be a hazing thing, because I’m new, but then no, you have an actual deer, on the train, and I have an actual story, this is amazing.”

Matt nodded. It would be pretty cool, he supposed, if the guy would actually be allowed to write about it.

“This is so…so…. Fucking Minnesota. I didn’t believe everything I heard, I thought it was cliches, like the Swiss all being impartial watchmakers, but then there’s a deer on the train, and you’re all just being polite to it, and…wow.” The reporter kept shaking his head, looking baffled and staring at Jonas.

Matt nodded. “Minnesota, right?” Maybe the reporter was new enough to write it off as a normal city oddity, and stop poking around.

The reporter seemed to finally pay attention to Matt as a person in his own right, not just another member of the audience at the Deer on the Light Rail Show.

“Hi, I’m Nino. _City Pages_ Staff Reporter. On the animals on public transit beat, among others.”

“Matt, nice to meet you.”

“It feels like he’s staring at me,” Nino said, looking back at the deer.

Brods was kind of giving him a weird look — a fairly normal intense Brods stare, but that made as much sense coming from a deer. Matt tried to gesture that Jonas should cut it out, and Jonas eventually got with the program and looked away. 

“Do you know how the deer got in here?” the guy asked. “I know there are deer down by the river, he could have wandered up somehow, but you’d think the people and the train and everything.”

Matt shrugged. He had two choices about how to play this. He could lie, and let Nino write a story about a random deer on the train, or he could tell the truth, and bring Nino back to the institute, and then erase the whole afternoon. He’d rather not do that, but would if necessary.

“I didn’t see anything, but like… He’s just chilling.” Matt needed to normalize the deer on the train situation, make it less of a news story.

“Someone should probably call animal control,” Nino said. “For his own sake. Poor thing would need help getting back to the river, or wherever the other deer are.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Matt said. “I’m sure he’ll find his own way home,” he said, hoping that he sounded like an authority on the subject. He really didn’t want to mess around with animal control.

It would have been so easy to cast a simple misdirection, and get Nino to stop all this, but he couldn’t risk it with Jonas’s side effects in the close confines of the train compartment. 

“I just don’t want him to get hurt,” Nino said.

Ah fuck. This wasn’t about journalism, Nino was actually a decent guy who cared about living creatures. That would make it harder to get rid of him. Matt would have to take a different track.

“You don’t need to worry about it,” Matt said, “I’ve got it covered.”

“How? Are you some sort of special deer specialist on the case? I thought you said he just wandered onto the train, and you didn’t know anything?”

“Well, I know a few things about deer,” Matt said, which was kinda true. He knew things about this particular deer at least. “I’m from Canada, I know some stuff about wild animals.” Sure, growing up in suburban Calgary wasn’t exactly the wilderness, but Nino didn’t need to know that.

“I really think that it would be better for someone with training to come in,” Nino said. “This is an extraordinary situation, they’d know what to do.”

“It really is an extraordinary situation, but like, that’s why we shouldn’t call anybody. Animal control knows what to do with stray dogs, and the occasional raccoon, they’d be lost with this.”

“And you’re not?” Nino asked.

“Nah, I think I can do it. I think he likes me.”

“He’s _a deer._ ”

“He’s just my buddy.”

“How is a deer _your buddy?_ ”

Matt shrugged. 

“You can’t be friends with a stray deer,” Nino said.

“Sure I can, it’s just Brods, he’s a great guy.”

“A deer can’t be a great guy, he’s _a deer._ ”

Matt sighed.

Fuck it. This had gone far enough that he’d be better of telling the truth and dealing with the consequences.

“Well, he isn’t always a deer.”

Nino stared at him.

“These things happen, alright? There were side effects.”

Nino looked at him with concern. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. This isn’t how I planned on spending my Saturday, but I’m fine. We’ll get this figured out, and it will all be cool.”

“Um…” Nino looked very concerned. Matt got it — having a stranger on the light rail say these sorts of thing would probably be very disconcerting. 

“See, we work at the Minnesota Institute for Wild Magic and Paranormal Phenomena. Brods is a research assistant, and his boss did this big working last night, and these were the side effects. Normally he’s a pretty cute boy, but today, he’s a deer. We’re on our way to the Institute right now to get some help fixing it.”

“That’s like…” Nino tilted his head to one side and considered Matt’s claim intently.

It was a pretty outrageous claim, but it had the weight of the truth behind it.

“Brods, buddy, back me up. This is all true, right?”

Brods nodded seriously. Matt didn’t know deer could look so serious.

“What the fuck,” Nino said. “What the actual fuck.”

“Side effects man. Sometimes weird shit happens.”

“Like turning into a deer?”

“Yeah, apparently. I’d never heard of that one before, but I don’t really know what Brods and Suter were working on. Some sort of wilderness preservation thing? Reforestation, but on like, an astral level?”

Jonas leaned over and bit down on Matt’s sleeve, and shook his head.

“Or maybe not? Am I doing a really terrible job of explaining your research, babe?”

Jonas nodded empathetically, moving Matt’s arm as he did, having not let go of Matt’s sleeve.

“Sorry. You can explain it better when you can. I know it’s interesting, but I sort of stopped paying attention when you guys started talking about different planes.”

Matt swears, if deers could look fondly exasperated, that’s the look Brods was giving him. He let go of Matt’s sleeve, and Matt petted his head. Nino stared at the two of them.

“You can come along with me to the Institute, and the write about the whole thing,” Matt offered. “That’s a way better story than just a deer on the train.” Of course, really Nino wouldn’t get to write about any of it, he’d lose the whole afternoon, but Matt was trying to ignore that, because it made him feel like a bad person. He understood the need for secrecy, but it wasn’t part of his character. He liked telling people things. He was enjoying telling Nino all about their world, even knowing Nino wouldn’t remember any of it.

“A secret magic institute _is_ a better story than a deer on a train. Not that a deer on a train is a bad story, it’s just…”

“This is a hell of a lot bigger,” Matt said. He remembers when he got recruited, his potential singled out, drafted away from a quiet life of hardly using his magic growing up to go learn from the best at the Institute. 

Matt explained the whole thing about not being able to pop over the Insitute without worrying about an interaction, and how taking the train just made the most sense. “I even scanned his card to pay for it,” Matt said. “It only seemed fair, right? Metro Transit is getting their dollar seventy-five, this is all above board.”

“I respect that a lot,” Nino said. “You wouldn’t have to do that, but I really respect that.”

“Thanks man. That means a lot. I’m just trying, right? We were going to have a good Saturday before all this shit, and I’m just trying to live my life and not make the world any worse.”

“What were you going to do if there weren’t any side effects? What’s a normal weekend for someone working at a magical Institute?”

Matt laughed. “Well, there’s no such thing as a normal weekend. Work for Brods has to do with like, moon cycles, and I travel around the state talking to people, so the fact that neither of us had any commitments was really amazing. But we were just going to like, hang out, play video games, order take out. Maybe go out for brunch tomorrow or something, try to have a real date with romance. Normally we’re too busy for that, but it might’ve been nice.”

“Instead you just woke up this morning and your boyfriend was a deer? That must suck.”

“Yeah. It really really does.” 

Matt spent the rest of the ride into Downtown St Paul telling Nino about the magical world. He talked about growing up in a family with magic, and what it was like to come to the Cities to do what he does. He talked about his own work, which was less about experimental castings, and more about community outreach. It has him going out with Zach to talk to foks a couple times a month, and helping with the early magical education initiative they’ve got going.

They got off at the Central station, and start walking towards the Institute. Even this late in the year, it was a nice day. They cut through Rice Park, where the grass was all dead, and the fountain turned off, but it was still kind of pretty. 

Matt lead the way to the Institute, an old building tucked between the library, the Ordway, and the arena. There were flags flying out front, and topiaries on either side of the door.

“I’ve walked by this before,” Nino said when they got there. 

“Yeah, we’re hiding in plain sight. All the signs say it’s the Minnesota Club, which maybe used to be a thing? We get a couple people a month wandering in and asking what it is, and the company lie is that it’s a private establishment. My buddy’s the director’s assistant, and I swear, scarring of normals is his favorite part of the job — he’s who we’re gonna be meeting actually, but don’t worry, he probably won’t be too mean?”

That was a lie, Matt was absolutely certain that Granny would be pissed he brought a reporter along, but whatever, he could suffer. It was a good day for suffering.

Matt let himself into the Institute, pushing opening the heavy front door, and holding it open for Jonas and Nino to go in. 

The main lobby was empty, so Matt ventured further into the building, to where Granny’s desk was sitting right outside Mikko’s office.

Granny didn’t look up from his book, which was rather insulting. Matt would have thought he’d be interested in seeing what one of his better friends looked like as a deer.

“Any movement?” Matt asked.

“They’re still in a meeting,” Granny said. “Some murmurs, but the door hasn’t opened.”

That sounded ominous. “Well, it’s good they’re getting stuff done,” Matt said. “Being thorough, working it all out, whatever it is, I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s important if they’re going to be in a meeting all Saturday.”

Granny looked up so Matt would see him rolling his eyes.

“Who’s this?” Granny asked, looking at Nino like he was a yeti, not a reasonably good-looking young man. 

“This is my new friend Nino. The _City Pages_ sent him to write about the deer on the train, but we’re friends now.”

“I’m still going to write about it,” Nino said, unhelpfully. Granny looked at him, a glare that could easily be translated into saying, “No, you most certainly are not.”

“Why did you make friends with a reporter?” Granny asked. “Why did you take the train?”

“No magic, no car, what would you have done?”

“I would have stayed home and waited for them to get out of the meeting,” Granny said.

“What, and miss out on this beautiful afternoon?”

Granny looked at him like he was stupid, but mostly that’s just his face, so Matt wasn’t offended.

Their standoff was interrupted by a low rumbling noise from behind Mikko’s door. They all turned to stare at it. Something big was happening in there. Matt could tell, from the sound, and the aura, and the faint scent of ozone in the air.

There was nothing they could do out here. Matt felt certain opening that door would be a terrible idea. The only thing to do was wait. 

“I can’t believe you brought a reporter here,” Granny said.

“Mikko can talk to him afterwards,” Matt said, hoping that Granny understood that “talk” really meant mindwipe. “I thought it would be better to deal with one reporter than with animal control.”

“Right. Because of course animal control would get called for a deer on a train.”

“Look, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Matt said. He still thought it was a fine enough idea. He made it work. 

Granny rolled his eyes.

“Brods thought it was a fine idea.”

“Brods and you…” Granny just shook his head. 

“Don’t worry, it’s always like this,” Matt said to Nino. “Sometimes Brods interrupts us when he isn’t a deer, but he’s pretty quiet, so really, this is just another day at the office.”

“Except that your boyfriend is a deer.”

“Yeah, except for that.”

“That is a fairly big deal,” Granny said. He stepped out from behind his desk to look at Jonas-the-deer more closely. “This is some pretty impressive blowback. Are you doing alright?”

Jonas nodded.

“You probably thought going on the train was a real fun idea, yeah?”

Jonas nodded again, and Matt remembered why he was in love.

“The next time I complain about too much administrative nonsense and not enough practical casting, remind me about this, alright?”

Jonas nodded. Normally this would have been the point in a conversation where he’d slip in a beautifully weird joke, but he didn’t, because deer can’t make jokes, or at least not the kind Jonas does. Matt was really ready for this day to be over. 

The need to interact with his deer friend seemingly satisfied, Granny turned back to Nino, and started complaining about how Matt shouldn’t have invited a reporter into the Institute. 

“We’re doing very sensitive work here, and you wouldn’t understand it,” Granny said, all snobbery and indignation.

“Transparency is _essential_ in keeping any institution honest,” Nino said. “The fact that whatever you’re doing is hard to understand only makes good reporting more important.”

With someone new to fight with, Matt knew Granny wouldn’t find anyone else that interesting. He left them to it, and wandered deeper into the institute. Brods followed him. The experimental wing got a bit twisty, with some rooms that weren’t really in the building, but Matt found his way to Suter’s office. He thought that if he looked around, maybe there’d be something obvious, and he’d be able to put it all right without waiting around any longer. 

Once Jonas figured out what he was thinking, the plan changed very suddenly. Matt had never been forcibly herded anywhere by a deer before. It was pretty effective, but maybe that had more to do with the way he’s been conditioned to going where Jonas wanted him to go. Either way, they wound up back in the main lobby, where Granny and Nino will still arguing, loudly.

He sat down on one of the couches. Jonas stood in front of him, shifting from foot to foot. Matt petted Jonas’s neck. This was still nice. Jonas’s magic still felt nice, sparking against the palm off his hand. Jonas stepped closer, getting all up in Matt’s space, same as usual, except for the deer thing. Matt leaned into it. His boyfriend made a pretty cute deer, all things considered. Jonas licked his ear. Sort of strange, but very Jonas.

“We’ll get it figured out, honey. It’s just side effects.” Jonas licked the side off his face. Weird deer kisses felt a lot like normal weird Jonas kisses, and that was nice. He hadn’t realized how tired he was until he sat down. 

Granny and Nino were still arguing. Nino was holding his own, which was better than Matt expected to be honest. Granny even sounded like he was enjoying himself. Matt really wished they were just a little bit quieter, but didn’t think it was worth asking. Matt left them too it, interrupting occasionally, when Granny started to get too mean or esoteric.

The afternoon wore on to early evening. It was the time of year where it got dark early, blackness settling in around the Institute. Granny shooed Jonas from the room so he could ignite the fireplace spell, bringing light and warmth to the drafty space. 

There were occasional noises from Mikko’s office, but nothing too loud, and nothing distinct. It sounded something like thunder, or shouting, or a lawn mower. If this was going on before Granny got into the office, then it had been going on for a very long time.

So much waiting was making Matt nervous. A problem that was taking this long to solve must be serious. He didn’t want to think about all of the possible obstacles between his boyfriend turning back into a boy instead of a deer.

He needed a distraction.

“You know what we should do?” he asked Jonas.

Deer can’t really shrug, but Jonas blinked at him. 

“We should order a pizza. I bet I’d feel a hell of a lot better if I had supper.”

Jonas nodded enthusiastically.

Matt interrupted Granny and Nino’s argument with his idea, and it was agreed to readily enough. Granny even agreed to call in the order using the Institute’s credit card. It only felt fair that if Matt had to be at work on a Saturday that work was buying him pizza. They looked through the menu for deer friendly food, and wound up ordering Jonas a spinach salad with strawberries and pecans. 

Jonas seemed skeptical, but didn’t act more excited about any of the other options Matt read off the menu for him. 

“I’m pretty sure pizza is bad for you,” Matt said.

He’d never seen a deer pout before, but it was adorable. He took a picture with his phone, and set it as his new lock screen. He spent the time waiting for the pizza to come taking selfies with his deerfriend, ignoring the bickering flirting happening on the other side of the room. 

The pizza got there, and it was great. Pizza could make anything better. Jonas seemed fairly content with his salad. Matt offered to pour the container of dressing over the greens, but Jonas shook his head no. With the salad half demolished Jonas turned to trying to steal bites of Matt’s pizza, which was probably a bad idea.

“There’s sausage on here, I don’t think that’s good for you.” Jonas looked really sad, so Matt picked off a mushroom, and Jonas happily ate it off his hand. Matt picked off three more slices worth of mushrooms for Jonas. He also ate Granny’s crusts.

This was sort of nice. It wasn’t the afternoon spent playing video games in their boxers, but it was sort of nice, and Matt knew he’d remember this afternoon. This would be the day Jonas turned into a deer, a distinct occurrence, unlike all the nice days spent doing nothing that blur together.

By the time the pizza was down to the last slice, Granny and Nino’s argument had turned almost completely into flirting. Nino would make guesses about the magical world, and Granny would correct him out of a need to be right and impressive. Granny decided to give Nino a proper tour of the place, leaving Matt with some beautiful peace and quiet.

He kicked his shoes off and sprawled on the couch, settling in for a nap. Jonas curled up on the floor next to him. Matt could drape his hand off the edge of the couch and petted Jonas’s back.

He was half asleep when there was a boom that echoed through the building, and a long flash of light. Where a deer had been sitting on the rug, there was now a lanky blond boy wearing pajamas. 

“That was odd,” Jonas said. 

Matt threw himself off the sofa, tackling Jonas with a very necessary hug. Jonas hugged back, holding on just as tight. Matt loved the way Jonas fit in his arms, human and soft and pointy and perfect.

The door of the director’s office opened, and Mikko walked out along with Ryan and Zach. Matt thought for a second, that maybe he should try to appear more professional in front of his bosses, but quickly gave up on the idea. 

“Sorry about that,” Ryan said, bashfully rubbing the back of his neck. 

“It’s okay,” Jonas said.

Matt realized, for the twenty-seventh time, that he would never understand their working relationship.

Matt had to let go of Jonas, at least slightly, which was unfortunate. They managed to get off the floor, and stand, holding hands and capable of having a normal conversation. 

Ryan and Jonas had to talk about what happened, and Matt had to not let go of Jonas’s hand. It was very important that he kept holding on. He squeezed, and Jonas squeezed back.

“Do you want the slightly less technical explanation?” Zach asked Matt.

“Not really,” Matt said. He didn’t care what went wrong, or what made it go right again. He’d probably care tomorrow, but not right now. Right now he wanted to go home, to lie next to Jonas, who was human and perfect, and probably make out for a while. He didn’t care about the long, probably convoluted, probably boring, explanation of what produced this set of side effects and how it was resolved.

“Okay, but it was actually pretty interesting,” Zach said. Matt didn’t believe him. “Ryan turned into a tree… thing… Not a real tree, but like… A tree thing. We’re still working on a name.”

“That’s cool,” Matt said.

“Yeah, maybe,” Zach said. “Weird day for sure.”

Matt nodded. 

Jonas let go of his hand, which was terrible. Matt was going to complain, but Jonas didn’t give him a chance, saying, “I’m going to find shoes, I’ll be right back.” Matt could have followed him back to the lockers, but this was an acceptable reason for separation, he supposed. He realized it would probably take a couple of days to get over this clinginess.

“How did the two of you get over here?” Mikko asked.

“We took the train,” Matt said.

Mikko nodded. “Efficient. Good choice.”

Matt felt very proud of himself, for a moment. 

Then Granny said, “He met a reporter on the train and brought him back here.”

Matt winced, and prepared himself for Mikko’s glare.

“It was deal with a reporter or deal with the animal control, and I feel like I made the right call. I figured I’d bring him back, and then you could…” Matt waved his hand around, in a mind-wipe like motion. 

“Or actually, maybe he could be useful?” Granny said. “We don’t know anyone at _City Pages_ , and he’s taken the idea that magic is real remarkably well. We could use another media contact.”

 _And you’re into fighting with him,_ Matt did not say.

Mikko sighed. “That’s not a horrible idea, but I want to be very clear that I’m not condoning bringing back strays.”

“Yes, sir,” Matt said. Granny nodded along. 

Mikko walked over to Nino, and sized him up. “I’m only allowing this because Mikke thinks you’ll be useful. Don’t make me regret it.”

Nino opened his mouth, probably to answer a question Mikko wouldn’t answer, looking very confused. Before he could figure out what to ask first Mikko put his thumb on Nino’s forehead and muttered a few words under his breath. “Now you won’t be able to talk about us to anyone who doesn’t already know. You won’t be able to write about it either. Usually we wouldn’t allow you to remember that we exist, so consider yourself lucky.”

Nino stared at him, gaping. Matt thought about the power involved in a spell like that, and what it must feel like to have that wash over you, having never felt magic before. He took heart in the fact that today was a very odd day for a lot of people, not just him.

“I’m going to give you the number to a friend of mine at the Strib with whom we have a similar arrangement. He might be willing to answer some of your questions.”

Nino seemed to think about saying something to Mikko, then wisely thought better of it, and turned to Granny instead.

“You were going to wipe my memories?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have done it myself, Mikko’s much better at those things.”

“But you knew that I wasn’t supposed to remember this, but you kept talking to me anyway, that’s so…”

Matt decided to ignore them. They might make a lovely couple someday, he hoped. He sat back down on the sofa, and waited for Jonas to come back. It wasn’t long before his gorgeous human boyfriend was there, standing in front of him in torn up jeans and moderately ugly sneakers. Matt gave back the extra wallet and phone in his pockets, and Jonas was very happy to have them. 

“I wonder if I could have used a touchscreen as a deer,” Jonas said. “With my nose maybe?”

“We’ll have to check next time.”

“Or maybe we can go find an actual deer, and see if he could use it?”

“Or we could turn Granny into a deer, and make him try?”

“Yeah, that sounds fun.”

Jonas smiled, with his nice human face, and held out his hand to pull Matt up off the couch. It was finally time to go home. 

Mikko stopped them on their way out of the building to say, “The two of you can take Monday off.”

Beautiful. Monday could be their day doing nothing, or tomorrow could be their day doing nothing, and then Monday could be their day to have an actual date, but however it worked out, they were getting a long weekend.

They decided to take the train back home, preferring to waste time on public transit than energy teleporting. They scanned their Go-to cards, and sat next to each other for the Green Line.

“It was good of you to pay my train fare earlier,” Jonas said.

“It was little, but it seemed important,” Matt said.

“It’s the little things that matter the most.”

The train pulled into the station, and they got on board. Matt closed his eyes, and listened to the clatter of the tracks. He squeezed Jonas’s warm human hand, and Jonas squeezed back.


End file.
